Seriously, you've got to love Rush Limbaugh. The guy is an American institution -- like a major investment bank, nationwide mortgage company, or neocon think tank -- and we all know how well those have worked out. Aside from college professors, who else could make so much out of so little to say on so many subjects? A true genius, for sure.
Following the "I hope Obama fails" debacle, Rush bounced back with the tried-and-true "I can't wait until Kennedy dies" sentiment. In light of these brilliant insights, I hereby urge Congress to pass the Rush Limbaugh Memorial Mental Health Bill. Indeed, we can cite his entire body of stellar work in the preamble. In the spirit of bipartisanship and equal-opportunity idiocy, here's just a very brief sampling of Rush's grossest hits:
On Race
"I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."
"You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed."
"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."
"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."
"Why should Blacks be heard? They're 12% of the population. Who the hell cares."
"If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people -- I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let the stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."
On Gender
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen."
"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."
"She comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her -- guess what -- she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life."
"Women were doing quite well in this country before feminism came along."
"We're not sexists, we're chauvinists -- we're male chauvinist pigs, and we're happy to be because we think that's what men were destined to be. We think that's what women want."
"It's true. The larger the bra size, the smaller the IQ."
On Sexual Orientation
"And one of the things that -- that the -- the AIDS activists said regularly back then was, oh, this is only a matter of time before it spreads to the heterosexual community. It's only a matter of time. And they used that as -- as one of the weapons to try to get people like Reagan to start talking about it from their standpoint. And of course it -- it hasn't. It -- it didn't, and it hasn't, other than in Africa, and in Africa it is -- it is being spread not just by -- it -- it - it's promiscuity that -- that -- that spreads this, if you want to know the truth. It's promiscuity. But it -- it hasn't made that jump to the heterosexual community."
"The difference between Los Angeles and yogurt is that yogurt comes with less fruit."
"When a gay person turns his back on you, it is anything but an insult; it's an invitation."
On Concern for Others
"Citizen service is a repudiation of the principles upon which our country was based. We are all here for ourselves."
"One of the things I want to do before I die is conduct the Homeless Olympics ... the 10-meter Shopping Cart Relay; the Dumpster Dig; and the Hop, Skip, and Trip."
"$14,400 for a family of four. That's not so bad."
"Can you imagine some poor welfare recipient in Arizona doesn't know what's up, doesn't know why the check's not as big, doesn't know why the food stamps don't stick to whatever he tries to mail?"
"Poverty is not the root cause of crime."
"I don't give a hoot that [Columbus] gave some Indians a disease that they didn't have immunity against."
"There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this sound like a record of genocide?"
On Love
"I know every square inch of my glorious naked body."
"I love hugging myself; I love human contact."
"Screw the world."
On the Environment
"The Earth's eco-system is not fragile."
"The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them."
"It has not been proven that nicotine is addictive, the same with cigarettes causing emphysema."
"Dioxin at those levels isn't harmful."
"Do you know we have more acreage of forest land in the United States today than we did at the time the Constitution was written."
"The most beautiful thing about a tree is what you do with it after you cut it down."
"Oil is not the enemy, folks. It's our buddy."
On Hypocrisy
"When you strip it all away, Jerry Garcia (former Grateful Dead guitarist) destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he's being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks."
"Too many whites are getting away with drug use... Too many whites are getting away with drug sales... The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them, and send them up the river, too."
My fellow Americans, if we're looking for shovel-ready projects to stimulate the economy, well ... there are some pretty big piles inside Rush's studio that need to be cleaned up. The good news is that this apparently is a renewable resource, so at least these will be long-term jobs. Let's call it the Flush Limbaugh Sustainable Stimulus Package and get a few thousand eager-to-work souls over there right away with shovels and pitchforks. Hmm, I can feel things picking up already!